In large-scale technical installations, for example power plants, training simulators are being increasingly used in order to train control room personnel for operation of the power plant and in order to train them for exceptional situations and critical operating states which may occur during actual operation of the power plant. However, simulators are also used for test purposes during the engineering of a technical installation in order to make it possible for a project engineer to find optimal solutions for the connection of functions inside the technical installation or to detect faults before the installation is implemented and thus to shorten start-up.
A simulator is generally a computer system in which processes of a technical installation can be carried out or illustrated under realistic conditions.
In the power plant sector, for example, a power plant is, in principle, simulated in the simulator as software. In order to simulate the operation of a power plant as realistically as possible on a computer, it is necessary to simulate both the process engineering process, which runs in an actual power plant and affects the operating behavior and interaction of the power plant components, and the automation engineering process, which comprises the process control system used for operation and control with its automation and operation and observation components, with the aid of complex software. The simulator accordingly behaves in an identical manner to the actual power plant. If the power plant is run with a particular control system, for example the Siemens SPPA-T3000 control system, all details on the simulator screen correspond to those from the control room of the actual installation.
Simulation computers which are independent of the control system, that is to say are a separate computer system, are usually used to simulate power plants. The effort required for this usually requires a gigantic computer power of the simulation computer used. The hardware for the simulation computer must be constructed, installed and maintained at each place of use.
Nowadays, there are two different simulator approaches (cf. also description of FIG. 1A): simulators in which the operating and observation system of the original control system is used, and simulators which also concomitantly simulate the operating and observation system of the control system, that is to say the entire user interface—however, this is very complicated and the results are generally also unsatisfactory. This solution is usually only used in older control systems, for example if the operating and observation system cannot be simulated because there is no simulator time support, for example.
There are often simulators which have separate computers for the hardware, which is the automation servers of the control system and the hardware connected to the control system such as I/O subassemblies, motors, valves etc., and for the physical process on which the technical installation is based (cf. also description of FIG. 1A).
In both cases, the software, like the hardware of the simulators, is decoupled from the control system. Parts of the original software engineering data relating to the automation of the control system are often used, that is to say the inputs for the simulation software receive values from the control system which are written, however, to software separate from the control system. Furthermore, the configuration of these simulators is very complex (sometimes not accessible at all to the user in the case of process simulators) and is carried out using configuration tools of a completely different type to those of the control system. A consistency check between simulators and the control system does not take place. In addition, the configuration of simulators generally does not take into account the engineering data relating to the cabling or wiring of connected hardware (sensors, actuators).